With the weather warming and days lengthening I decided it was time to start making some herbal remedies again from fresh plant material. There are many fruit bushes at our medicine garden including an abundant berry producing black currant (Ribes nigrum). I had read about using it as a tincture in ‘New Menopausal Years, The Wise […]
Last year my usual hayfever symptoms of streaming nose and itchy eyes were greatly reduced. It was such a relief. Other years I have tried herbal supports but not with the same success – so that got me thinking, what did I do differently last year? I had read that drinking nettle in advance of the pollen […]
Another calendar celebration is upon us – Spring Equinox, 20-23rd March. Day and night are equal in length and we celebrate the Festival of Balance and Awakenings. It is traditionally the first day of spring, and the egg as a symbol of fertility is well known. Traditionally eggs were painted and given as gifts, hung […]
Imbolc, Là Fhèill Brìghde (Scottish Gaelic), Candlemas or the Festival of St Brigit is one of the eight festivals celebrated by the Celts of Britain and Ireland to mark the turning of the seasons. Once I started reading about Imbolc I found so much information that some of it will have to wait until next year […]
As it is #HotTeaMonth I thought it was a good time to write about how to brew herbal tea. It is a question I get asked a lot at markets, which is surprising as most people make herbal tea most days without thinking about it, we just don’t think of Tetley as herbal tea! Making herbal […]
To celebrate Hot Tea Month this January I thought I would share an essay I wrote on tea for my Herbal Correspondence Course with the Scottish School of Herbal Medicine a couple of years ago. The title we were given was ‘The Water of Life’ and I chose to write about tea. It was really […]
With climate change being high on the news agenda at the moment I decided to see if research had been carried out to determine how it will effect medicinal herbs. From a web search I found an article by Courtney Cavaliere for the Journal of American Botanical Council on “The Effects of Climate Change on […]
Our medicine garden is a year old! I can’t believe we have been there for a year already. It has been wonderful to transform the space from the former unused allotments that it was into a growing and teaching space. Thank you so much to Diana and Richard who we rent the land off for […]
As we come to the shortest days of the year I thought I would have a look at Pines to see how we can work with these evergreen plants to keep us in good health. Some evergreens e.g. Yew and some Pines are poisonous so ensure you have correctly identified your tree first. Earlier in the year I […]
Following on from my last post I have been seeking out new plants to vinegar in order to help keep me in good health this winter. I boiled my organic cider vinegar to pasteurise it and have made several different vinegars with lemon balm (harvested from our medicine garden) and also hawthorn and rose hips […]
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